Since opening in June 1999, Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium has welcomed over 1.3 million visitors per year. With the first retractable roof in the UK, the stadium is a multi-purpose, all-round venue. With a UEFA 5-Sr.ar rating and two Rugby World Cups, two Wales rugby union Grand Slams, three Heineken Cup finals, six FA Cup Finals plus a plethora of major international football matches, concerts and motorsports events on its CV, the Millennium Stadium is established as a world-class, must-play, must-visit venue and has been home to five major sporting bodies over the last nine years.
Erected on the site of the old Cardiff Arms Park, the world-famous home of Welsh rugby, the Millennium Stadium was primarily built for the 1999 Rugby World Cup. As early as 1994, a committee was set up to look at redeveloping the Welsh national stadium and linking the redevelopment to the regeneration of
West Cardiff. In 1995, Wales won the right to host the 1999 Rugby World Cup against severe competition from the southern hemisphere, but a review of the national stadium at Cardiff Arms Park (designed in 1962) showed that it had long since been overtaken, as the rugby union bodies in England and Scotland had developed stadiums with capacities of 75,000 and 67,000 respectively and France was about to build the Stade de France with a capacity of over 80,000.
RUGBY WORLD CUP
Capacity at the old national stadium was just 53,000 (including 11,000 standing on the East Terrace) and new safety regulations meant that the capacity would be further reduced by all-seater arrangements. There were no spectator facilities in the old stadium other than toilets. It was decided that the new stadium should have a roof to accommodate a requirement for multi-use as well as a natural grass pitch for rugby and football. Therefore a retractable roof was incorporated into the design brief. The only other retractable roof in Europe at the time was at the Amsterdam ArenA (with a capacity of 50,000), the home of Ajax.
A number of different development options were considered. One included adding a third tier to the existing stadium; another suggested moving to a completely new site. The Millennium Stadium redevelopment option that was eventually chosen and supported by the Millennium Commission became the fourth redevelopment in the history of the Cardiff Arms Park site.
It was clear from the budget requirement for the new stadium (of over £100m) that Government funding would be needed, but the only potential source of funding at the time was the National Lottery — set up in 1994 — as one of eight major UK projects of the Millennium Commission.
The Commission was prepared to fund a maximum of £50m of the redevelopment so Welsh Rugby Union decided to raise the remainder of the £ll4m budget from commercial sources. After competition from the proposed Cardiff Bay Opera House in March 1996, the Millennium Commission agreed to support the redevelopment of Cardiff Arms Park by turning the stadium 90 degrees, developing over existing sites and demolishing the Empire Pool on the corner of Wood and Park Street to create an open plaza guaranteeing safe access and entrance for spectators.
Critics claimed the project could not be completed on schedule, but the doors to the new Millennium Stadium were thrown open for the first time in June 1999 when Wales welcomed world champions South Africa for a Rugby World Cup warm-up match. Four months later, the stadium successfully hosted the opening ceremony of Rugby World Cup 1999, three group matches for Wales, a quarter-final, the third-place play-off and the Rugby World Cup final between Australia and France. The Millennium Stadium proved to be a triumph for Welsh ingenuity as fans from around the world flocked to marvel at its architecture and revel in the raucous atmosphere created in a superb stadium that now held 74,500 spectators.
A GREAT CHOICE
As well as playing host to matches involving the Welsh national rugby and football teams, the Millennium Stadium soon became a venue of choice for concerts and other sports such as speedway, motocross, rugby league and boxing. Stars from the music world to have appeared at the stadium over the last nine years include Madonna, Tina Turner, Robbie Williams and Bruce Springsteen, whilst mega-bands such as U2, The Rolling Stones, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Bon Jovi and the Manic Street Preachers have all graced the Millennium stage in front of huge, enthusiastic audiences.
Cardiff also struck gold in 2001 when The Football Association elected to transfer its major club matches to the Millennium Stadium after work started on the new Wembley. Six FA Cup finals were played in Wales, including the epic 2001 match between Liverpool and Arsenal, and the Millennium Stadium also hosted numerous League Cup finals and Football League play-off matches before Wembley eventually reopened for business in 2007.
What makes the Millennium Stadium so special is its superb location right in the heart of Cardiff city centre. Situated on the banks of the River Taff, 200 metres from the main railway station, the stadium is a magnet for visiting fans who love to soak up the big-match atmosphere whilst socialising in the city’s numerous bars, cafes and restaurants situated just a few blocks away. Crowd trouble is virtually non¬existent with everybody seemingly intent on enjoying a memorable day out at one of European sport’s most prestigious and convenient venues.
The Millennium Stadium is a popular venue with the players, too. Following his side’s 2007 League Cup final victory over Arsenal — the last all-English match played in Cardiff before Wembley reopened -Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard commented: “It has been a fantastic venue. I’ve really enjoyed playing here. I have lost once and won twice so I have a good record and have liked it on every occasion. Wembley is the spiritual home of the FA Cup and obviously everyone would like to play there, but while it has not been possible, the Millennium Stadium has been a great choice.”

As all Soviet schoolchildren knew from their history lessons, Kiev was considered to be “the mother of Russian towns”. Indeed, the capital of Ukraine is the oldest of the East Slavic cities. It is a beautiful place with wide green boulevards and magnificent ancient cathedrals famed for their golden domes. However, the past has often been cruel to Kiev. First devastated by the Mongols in 1240, the city faced many more adversities in the next 800 years, culminating in the occupation of the city by Nazi troops in September 1941 after the battle known as the Kiev Defensive Operation, which saw the Red Army lose some 700,000 soldiers.
The National Olympic Sports Complex, or Respublikansky Stadium as it is still referred to by Kiev’s inhabitants, is one of the world’s biggest stadiums. It was home to the legendary Dynamo Kiev team in rhe last quarter of the 2O’h century and is also one of the most impressive sights in the Ukrainian capital. A look at the huge oval bowl takes us back to the old times, when 100,000 crowds were common.
A PERFECT PLACE
The idea of constructing a stadium in the tiird most important city of the Russian Empire after St Petersburg and Moscow dates back to 1914. However, this was the year when World War I began, so the plans were shelved and revived by the Bolsheviks almost a decade later when it was clear that Soviet power had finally been established in Kiev.
The tiny Red Stadium — a typical name for those times – was hurriedly built at the foot of the Cherepanova hill. However, it did not come up to scratch. The designers made many mistakes because of the rushed construction. In particular, the goals were aligned along an east-west axis instead of the standard north-south. But the venue itself was perfect. It was a marvellous arena, situated very close to the centre and big enough to accommodate numerous sports facilities. A new construction project, this time carefully planned, began in 1936. It provided a 50,000-seat arena as the main part of the complex, alongside tennis courts, swimming pools, basketball and volleyball pitches, cycling tracks, etc.
The Respublikansky Stadium was finished five years later and initially named after Joseph Stalin. After the Soviet leader’s death in 1953, it was renamed after Nikita Khrushchev, the future leader of the Soviet Union and the head of the Ukrainian branch of the Communist Party in the late 1930s and 1940s. The legendary radio journalist Vadim Sinyavsky, who was worshipped by several generations of Soviet sports lovers, was supposed to report live on the opening ceremony and the league game that followed between Dynamo Kiev and CDKA on 22 June 1941. Instead he had to report on Nazi bombers dropping their lethal cargo on the “mother of Russian towns” on what was the first day of the Great Patriotic War.
According to official sources, the opening ceremony was finally held three years after Victory Day, in 1948, but there was another ceremony. On 12 July 1942, the occupation forces opened the stadium to the public and arranged a game between the best players from the Nazi soldiers and the local squad Srart, which consisted of former members of Dynamo who had managed to save their lives and were working at the city bakery. The home team won 6-0. In the next few weeks, they defeated more German teams. The series continued at another stadium — Dynamo’s current stadium — with no Ukrainians allowed, but the matches were finally stopped by the authorities because Starts unbeaten run was beginning to look more and more like an act of rebellion. Four of the team’s players were later sentenced to death.
THE LOBANOVSKY ERA
By the middle of the 1960s, Dynamo Kiev were already a major force in Soviet football. They won their first national title in 1961 and five years later went on to win three more titles in a row. Public interest was enormous, and it was clear that the stadium was not big enough. Therefore, further reconstruction began in 1966. Two years later, the capacity had increased by another 50,000 seats. This happened just in time because the Valety Lobanovsky era was about to begin.
The glorious coach rook over Dynamo in 1972. In total, he managed the club for 21 years, during which Dynamo won the Soviet championship seven times, and added five more Ukrainian titles after the collapse of the USSR. Lobanovsky was also the head coach of the national team, three quarters of which consisted of Dynamo players, and took them to the final of the European Championship in 1988. It was he who led the club to the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1975, the first international success by a Soviet club, and probably more importantly, considering the opponent was Bayern
Munich, the Super Cup later on that year.
In 1978, the arena underwent further reconstruction In preparation to host several group-stage games during the Moscow Olympics two years later. It was not to be its last renovation. Two decades later, the wooden benches were replaced with plastic seats, which reduced the stadium’s capacity to just under 83,000. However, this attendance figure has never actually been recorded there in the last few years, even when Dynamo or the Ukrainian national ream have played against a top-class opponent, because the stadium is not allowed to be full due to security reasons. However, that will change soon. After Ukraine was chosen to co-host EURO 2012 alongside Poland, there were no other alternatives but to choose the Kiev stadium as the venue for the final. It will therefore undergo further modernisation, and in a couple of years we will surely be admiring the glorious arena in its new form.